


soft white noise

by from a forgotten time (retweet_this)



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US)
Genre: Other, The Silence of the Lambs AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 15:55:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retweet_this/pseuds/from%20a%20forgotten%20time
Summary: Just a few short words that strike fear into Liz’s heart.





	soft white noise

She’s out on her morning run when her phone buzzes. It’s a little strange, Bumiller usually doesn’t text her, she just emails her or tells her what she needs when Liz shows up to work. And she’s not even due in the office for another hour or so.

_Drop by my office when you get into work._

Just a few short words that strike fear into Liz’s heart. There would be more of a warning than this if she was about to get fired, right? Right?

“Aw, fuck,” she mumbles under her breath, turning right around running back to her apartment. She just hopes she’ll have time to clear out her desk without security bursting through and escorting her out. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, actually.

Mikayla catches her eye when she finally arrives at the office, and they exchange panicked looks as Liz passes her by.

“What’s going on?” she whispers, a little frantic, looking around as though someone might be eavesdropping. “People are talking. Are you headed to Bumiller’s office? Did she say anything to you?”

Liz liked to think she was pretty popular around the office but she didn’t think that it extended to people being extremely invested in her employment status. Oh, fuck, what if she was the first in line for another round of layoffs?

She gives Mikayla a helpless shrug and tries to push her worries down as she carefully opens the door to Bumiller’s office. She looks up from the manila folder in her hands and gives Liz a warm smile.

“Glad you could make it,” she says. “Please, take a seat. You, uh, know Mr. Wolf Blitzer, don’t you?”

He’s standing by the corner of the room, behind Bumiller’s desk, upright and distant. His hair might be thinning and there might be more lines of fatigue across his face but Liz wouldn’t forget the face of the man who once hosted The Situation Room for over ten years.

She starts to hold out her hand but Blitzer just nods firmly, so she sits down and focuses on Bumiller instead. She’s got the file back in her hands, eyes scanning words, lips pressed into a thin line.

“You’ve got a pretty impressive resume here, Landers,” she says.

“Thank you,” Liz replies. She tries not to sound curt or rude or, well, anything that wouldn’t get her stellar references.

Bumiller seems to notice her fear when she looks up at her again. “Oh, Landers, don’t worry, I haven’t called you in here to be fired.”

Liz lets out a chuckle caught between nervousness and relief. “Was it that obvious?”

“A little,” Bumiller hums. “Though, there is something I wanted to ask you about on here. You graduated with high marks, you had a couple of internships in several newsrooms, you even got a few op-eds published, and yet you chose to get your degree in psychology.” She lowers the file. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but if you were so sure you wanted to get into journalism, then why study psych?”

Liz tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, ma’am, I thought – and still think – that in order to report on stories involving people, we should get to know the people. Empathize with them and their struggles, get an understanding of who they are and what they're going through so our reporting can accurately reflect that.”

Bumiller nods absently and slaps the file shut, turning her chair over to Blitzer. He blinks, slowly, before letting out a long sigh and nodding.

When Bumiller turns back to her, there’s something in her expression that makes Liz’s stomach churn with anticipation. Sympathy. Pity. Sadness.

“A sort of a job’s come up,” she says, “and I think you’re the person who should do it.”

“What’s the job, ma’am?”

Bumiller opens her mouth but Blitzer cuts her off. “Landers,” he says. His voice is sharp, firm, just as crisp and clear as it was on the last day of his broadcast. “We need you to interview Jake Tapper.”

“Oh,” Liz says, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She says it again. “Oh.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An FBI agent sits in the driver’s seat while Liz sits in the back, pouring over the pages from the dossier. She presses her lips together and looks up. “Am I allowed to write on this? Like - underline things, leave notes in the margins?”

“As long as you keep it to yourself, ma’am,” Agent Zebley replies, politely.

Liz nods and pulls a pen out of her pocket. She’s kicked off her heels for the time being, thanking whichever deity was responsible for leaving a sensible pair of flats in her purse that she could switch into for the asylum.

She was still in school when the beginnings of the Tapper case erupted in D.C. Several prominent lobbyists and congressional staffers were going missing, their bodies found days later mutilated with different organs missing. Twitter was divided between those horrified by what was going on and those, for the lack of a better word, condoning the actions of this mystery killer. After all, pedophiles and war profiteers didn’t need to die honorable deaths, did they?

Liz doesn’t really remember what side she was on, most of this was while she was trying to wrangle a summer internship with the Tampa Bay Times. She does remember when someone from the FBI leaked to the press that the missing organs weren’t just trophies.

A shiver goes up her spine as she reads the still-incomplete list of Tapper’s victims. All the ones he admitted to. At the top sits the name _Jennifer Brown Tapper_. Try as she might to convince herself otherwise, Liz knows there’s a relation there.

She draws a star by the name and flips to the next page. His psych profile is about as unnerving as reading any Stephen King novel. Maybe even worse. Stephen King’s protagonists didn’t describe in exquisite detail how to cut someone’s liver out and still leave them breathing, and then tell them what wine went best with it.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Zebley asks.

Liz looks up and meets his eyes in the rearview. “Yeah,” she says. She clears her throat. “I’m fine.” He’s probably wondering why his higher ups let this young reporter come in to talk to a fucking cannibalistic serial killer instead of a certified field agent or psychiatrist.

She did, of course, ask Blitzer the exact same question. He gave her a halfhearted shrug. “Jake Tapper used to have a lot of respect for law enforcement agents, before he had to deal with them from the other side of the bars. And he flat-out refuses to speak to psychiatrists.”

He shook his head. “No, no, but he still has a soft spot in his heart for young up-and-coming professionals.”

She knows what he said but it sounded an awful lot like, _he wants a pretty young thing to play with, so we’re giving him what he wants._

Dr. Jackson tells her as much, during the walk from his office, down to where they’re holding Tapper. “I met his wife, once, at a DC party,” he explains. “She looked just like you.”

“Uh huh,” Liz says. She wonders if he knows how uncomfortable that sounds right about now.

“You know,” he continues, “I’m a bit surprised they’re actually sending another journalist to interview him. Especially after what happened last time.”

That’s enough to put a perk in her step as she catches up to him. “Oh, yes, about that –”

“Let me guess,” Jackson says, “they didn’t tell you anything about it so you wouldn’t chicken out, huh?” He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. When Liz just gives him an expectant look, he sighs. “What do you know about it?”

“I know that Tapper agreed to a series of interviews with a CNN reporter after his sentencing, I know that he was let out for a friend’s funeral, and I know that something happened in that time that led to his transfer to a maximum-security facility.”

“Should have been prison but they didn’t want him mixing with the general population there.” He shakes his head. “During the trial, they put him in a holding cell - mask and mouthpiece on and so he couldn’t bite a guard’s face off again –” Liz can’t help it, she jerks a bit at the _again_ , “– and he still managed to charm the guy in the next cell over into killing himself.”

Liz’s stomach is churning again. Or, no, it’s steeling itself for whatever’s about to come. They enter a small office and she turns to him. “Doctor,” she says. “The guy before me – what happened to him?”

It’s the second sad and sympathetic look she’s seen today, but the first not directed at her. “They never did find Jim Acosta’s body.” He nods and gestures to a nearby orderly. “Barney can take care of you from here. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

Barney looks reassuringly kind, even as he goes over the rules once more. “Don’t reach for the glass, don’t come anywhere near him. Only pass him loose-leaf sheets of paper, soft-cover books, or paper folders – no staples or paperclips. No pens or pencils either, Mr. Tapper is given charcoal and crayons for his work. Use the sliding food carrier to pass him anything, no exceptions. And do not accept anything he attempts to offer you. Do you understand me?”

Liz nods. “I do, thank you.”

“I’ve set out a chair for you.” He gives her a smile. “We’ll be watching from the security cameras. You’ll do fine.”

Liz nods again, more out of instinct than necessity, and she takes a deep breath before passing through the steel doors and into the holding chamber.

She’d seen plenty of him on TV before, back when CNN was still big and relevant. She’d Googled some pictures too, while waiting for Zebley to pick her up from the Times building. So it does come as a bit of a shock to her that even with incarceration, he looks just as he did during his last TV appearance.

He’s tall, not exceptionally so, with a handsome face, surprisingly clean-shaven. He has very pretty features. She knew plenty of girls who had brief crushes on him. What they’d be thinking right now if they knew where she was and who she was with.

“Mr. Tapper,” she says, as she steps in front of the cell. “My name is Elizabeth Landers. May I talk to you?”

Tapper looks at her carefully, analytically, or so she’d think if his face didn’t stay soft and almost welcoming. Even with his suits traded in for ridiculous jumpsuits, he still looks like a normal man. Not at all like the serial killer he’s known to be.

“Good morning,” he smiles.

“Good morning,” Liz replies, automatically. She sets her purse down on the chair and pulls the file out. “I’m with the FBI, sir, and we’re having a bit of a problem with psychological profiling. I want to ask for your help with a questionnaire.”

Tapper nods slowly, something unreadable in his face until he asks, “May I see your credentials? If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Privately, she thanks herself for having put the temporary ID card in her wallet and not in some random purse pocket so she wouldn’t have to go digging for it. She holds it up as Tapper walks toward his desk and pulls on a pair of glasses.

Peculiar to have glasses, when he could easily break the frames or the lenses and do whatever he wants with them.

As if sensing her thoughts, Tapper chuckles. “Child-friendly reading glasses,” he hums. “I couldn’t even cut paper with the shards, even if I wanted to.”

She isn’t sure if she’s supposed laugh at that, so she just lets the corners of her mouth tick up slightly as she holds out the card. Her arm extends all the way but that doesn’t seem to be enough, and she complies when he asks her to move closer.

After a few moments, he chuckles again. “Well, well. That ID of yours expires in a week. You’re not an official agent, are you? And please don’t lie to me – if you know my reputation, then you should know that I do not enjoy being lied to.”

The crime scene photos of David Urban’s mutilated body suddenly come to mind and even though there’s no way he could hurt her, not through that glass and all the security measures that come after, she still feels compelled to tell him the truth.

“I am here as a representative for the FBI,” she says, “but – no. I’m not a federal agent.”

To his credit, Tapper seems appreciative of the honesty. He folds his hands behind his back. “Well, Miss Landers, I think it’s only fair that you properly introduce yourself to me before I introduce myself to you. It’s not typical interview procedure but I like to know who I’m talking to before I talk to them.”

“That’s not an unreasonable request,” Liz says. Wolf’s warning rings inside her ears, _Don’t tell him anything about yourself_ , and she ignores it as she proceeds to do just exactly that. “I’m a reporter for the New York Times.”

“A style reporter,” he corrects.

Liz blinks. “How did you know?”

“I read your article about the Met Gala.” He’s smiling, and she could imagine how, once upon a time, people could find that charming. Fuck, she knows who he is and she finds it charming. “I get all the major newspapers and magazines delivered to me, once I’ve finished my weekly book.”

“Oh,” she says. “So – you knew who I was, when I introduced myself?”

“I did,” Tapper says. “But I wanted to see whether you would reveal the truth yourself. Suffice to say, you passed the test.”

“Well… that’s good,” Liz says, slowly. That’s good, right? Probably. “Well, speaking of tests, if we could get back to the questionnaire –”

He shakes his head. “Oh, Miss Landers, you’ve misunderstood me. _You_ passed the test. Your superiors, on the other hand…” He pulls over the chair from his desk and sits down, crossing his legs and folding his hands, one over the other. “Let me guess – Wolf Blitzer brought you into this, huh?”

Liz doesn’t know what to say to that, but there must be something on his face because he laughs and shakes his head. “Next time you see him, tell him I wish him a happy birthday. I’d send him a gift but, well…” he gestures around the cell.

“I’m sure he understands –”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about something that’s been appearing in the news lately,” Tapper says. “There’s that serial killer running around the Northeast, isn’t there? Do you know why law enforcement has been calling him Davy Crockett?”

She licks her lips a little, feeling the cracked skin under her tongue. “The first woman they found was shot and disemboweled like one would with a deer. I believe the exact words of one of the officers was, ‘where’s the Davy Crockett motherfucker who did this’.”

“I see,” Tapper nods slowly. “A bit tasteless, don’t you think?”

“Not all serial killers have to have nicknames, but some of them stick,” Liz shrugs. And then, without thinking, “American Psycho fit pretty well with you, didn’t it?”

Her brain catches up with her mouth and her entire body freezes but almost shockingly, Tapper’s expression of politeness doesn’t change a bit. He might even be smiling a little.

“Well, Miss Landers,” he hums, “I do think I hate women a lot less than Patrick Bateman did.” He stands up, slowly, gesturing with his hands. “The questionnaire, please.”

Oh, damn, she really almost forgot she even had it. She pulls it out of her purse and sets it on the tray, stepping back when Tapper moves forward to collect it. He sets it down on his desk. “Tell Wolf Blitzer that if he wants this questionnaire back, he has to send me the files on Davy Crockett. The serial killer, not the actual man.” He takes a moment to laugh at his own joke.

Liz blinks. “That’s – that’s it? That’s all you want?”

“Oh, heavens, no,” Tapper says. He’s looking at the paper with an air of distaste. “No, I just want to see if Wolf even has the authority to do something like that. Though, guessing from your presence here, he might.”

Something seems incredibly off about this. She presses her lips together for a moment. “I don’t understand,” she admits. “Are you playing some kind of game with Wolf just because you can or –”

“Elizabeth,” Tapper says, abruptly. He sets the paper down on his desk. “Don’t assume that the people who sent you here have any regard for your well-being, not when they know what I am capable of. No, they sent you here because they thought I could be charmed by a pretty face and my innate desire to do good would overcome my newfound hatred of authority.”

He shakes his head, slowly. The changes he’s gone through since his incarceration are now dawning on Liz, slowly, like cracks being illuminated from within. “They’ve underestimated the both of us. You might have a pretty face, Elizabeth, but I’ve read your articles, I’ve seen your transition from New York to Washington. You’re tenacious, you’re craving something more than what you’re given. This may not come as a shock to you but I do know a thing or two about cravings.”

There are a lot of things she could say, especially to a man smiling like that. “So what are you suggesting, Mr. Tapper?”

“Come back by the end of the week. Maybe we can arrange a mutually beneficial relationship. A quid pro quo of sorts. And please,” he smiles, sweetly, warmly, “call me Jake.”

“Okay,” Liz says, because there’s not much else to say. She presses her feet down into her shoes, trying to keep steady. “One week.” She’s just about to turn around when he calls after her.

“Elizabeth,” he hums, “I’m sure this was just a simple mistake on your part, given the nature of this interview, but I do prefer you not record our little talks together.” His lips curl again, but there’s a more sinister tone to it, and suddenly the room feels icy. “Your predecessor, he recorded our conversations. Look what happened to him.”

Liz doesn’t know how fast she walked out of there and into Agent Zebley’s car, but if she looks at all spooked by her encounter, he doesn’t comment on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“So you’re _really_ going back to see him?” Mikayla asks. She sounds as incredulous as her expression makes her out to be.

“Blitzer said he’d arrange the whole thing,” Liz says, resisting the urge to shrug. She probably shouldn’t be acting blasé about this whole situation, especially considering the circumstances. Especially considering that they, you know, haven’t found the body of the last person who spoke with him.

“Hey, Mikayla,” she starts, “do you… you were here, right, when Tapper was arrested?”

“Not really for the main event, so to speak,” Mikayla admits. “I was out of the country at the time. But I was here when the whole Acosta thing went down.”

“I was still in New York when that went down,” Liz says. “I do remember it was all very hush-hush, though, especially because of the funeral.”

“From what I heard, Acosta was dead-set against letting Tapper attend,” Mikayla says. “But, you know, people still couldn’t reconcile the newsman with the serial killer.” She lets out a humorless chuckle. “He was real charming, Liz.”

“He still is,” Liz says. There is only so much one can find through articles and Wikipedia searches.

Wait.

“The FBI handled the investigation into Tapper, right?” she asks, picking at her salad for a few seconds before dropping her fork in the bowl.

“Yeah, I think so,” Mikayla starts, but Liz stops listening.

“I’ll be right back.” She gets up and all but rushes out, trying to stem the clacking of her heels against the floor as she heads back to the offices.

Oh, good, Schmidt and Mazzetti are still there. Liz marches right up to them. “Hey, Mike, could you do me a favor?”

“Sure,” Schmidt shrugs. He cracks his knuckles and leans back in his chair. “What’s up?”

“You helped cover Tapper’s investigation and trial, right?” When he nods, she crosses her arms. “Someone told me that Acosta recorded his conversations with Tapper, while he was interviewing him. Would CNN have them or would the FBI have taken them as evidence?”

Schmidt takes a second to think about it. “I’m pretty sure that the FBI has copies and made transcripts. CNN probably still has the originals.”

“How do you know that off the top of your head?” Mazzetti asks.

Liz ignores him. She debates for a second, then keeps her expression stern and focused. “Can you get them for me? From the FBI? The investigation’s closed now, right, so they probably don’t need it?”

“No, he can’t do that,” Mazzetti says, at the same time as Schmidt says, “Sure, I can get them.”

Mazzetti gives him another disbelieving look. “Mike, I don’t think you’re allowed to -” he starts, but Schmidt is already typing away on his phone.

“Yeah, just drop by here at the end of the day, I’ll have it for you,” he hums.

“Thanks so much,” Liz smiles. She goes off with a spring in her step, leaving Mazzetti and Schmidt to debate whether or not what just happened was allowed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She plans on heading right home that evening, politely declining invitations to drink or talk about what the fuck happened that morning.

“I mean, you don’t start on your new beat until next week,” Katie says. “They don’t have much of a reason to fire you when you haven’t done anything yet.”

Mikayla has tight lips and there’s no reason for Bumiller to spread the word around, so Liz feels no guilt in just shrugging and laughing it off. What they don’t know is probably better for them.

She heads for Schmidt’s desk and she finds him there still, waiting expectantly, Mazzetti nowhere in sight. He gestures for her to hold out her hand and drops a flash drive in her open palm.

“That’s all the audio recordings and the transcripts.”

“There’s nothing else from Acosta about Tapper? No notes or anything?” Liz mentally berates herself for not asking this earlier, but Schmidt shakes his head.

“No, but there are reports that Acosta wrote notes during his interviews, but no one’s found them since his death. Tapper didn’t outright confess to destroying the notebook, but then again,” Schmidt shrugs, “he didn’t even confess to killing the man.”

Liz nods thoughtfully. And then, because she can’t take it anymore, she just asks. “What happened?”

Schmidt sighs, leaning back again and crossing his legs. “It was a friend’s funeral. We never got the name, only that he was a former servicemember and a good friend of Tapper’s before the whole...” he gestures his hand vaguely. “Tapper asked if he could attend the funeral. It had been two years since his incarceration, but the thing about this town is, everyone has a short memory and people are too willing to forgive people they like.”

Liz thinks back to how Tapper looked in that cell, calm and poised, the inflection of his voice, the way he laughed. She nods.

Schmidt continues. “Acosta told a lot of people that he didn’t think this was a good idea, that Tapper was more than capable of doing something. And something he did. On the way back from the funeral, he killed incapacitated his security detail and escaped.”

“Did he...” Liz doesn’t know if she can finish the sentence, but Schmidt seems to know the answer anyway.

“No, not like that, he’s more meticulous about that. He cooks all his food,” he says, almost assuring, before going back into his story. “It took a few hours to find him. The FBI admits they made a mistake in not informing local law enforcement of his escape, they didn’t want to cause a panic, but that could have saved Jim Acosta’s life.”

Schmidt pauses here, like he’s trying to remember what happened next or find the right words to describe it. “Acosta had a boat,” he says, finally. “His blood was all over it. He was in Tapper’s arms, an agent said they could hear his raggedy breath as he pressed a bloody hand to Tapper’s cheek.”

“I thought they didn’t find his body,” Liz says. She doesn’t know why her voice is so quiet, all of a sudden.

“That’s the last time they saw it,” Schmidt says. “Tapper threw him off the side of the boat. The river’s been searched dozens of times but no one’s found anything.”

“So –” Liz’s voice cuts off suddenly and she tries again. “So there’s a chance he’s still alive?”

Schmidt gives her another one of those sad, sympathetic looks. “There was a lot of blood, Liz.”

She thinks about his words on the way back to her apartment, as she sets up her laptop and puts on her headphones. She’s a fast reader, but she’d rather listen to the sounds of their voices than read what they had to say.

Whatever secrets a dead man could reveal to her about his killer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ _Recording begins_ ]

 **Jim Acosta:** Testing, one, two, three. Testing.

 **Jake Tapper:** From what I remember about iPhones, I don’t think you need to test whether or not it’s recording.

 **JA:** Call it a force of habit. [ _clears throat_ ] All right, I want to top this off by pointing out our first and only interaction, outside of the few times I corresponded on your show. I think I’m one of the few people in the DC bureau who didn’t have a personal connection with you.

 **JT:** [ _glibly_ ] Aren’t you just lucky?

 **JA:** [ _terse_ ] Aren’t I just? [ _pause_ ] Okay, so, we met at, uh, a holiday party.

 **JT:** Oh, yes, one of those fun holiday parties. I think it was my first and only time attending one. You must’ve met my wife there.

 **JA:** You must’ve met mine, too.

 **JT:** Look at us now.

[ _pause_ ]

 **JA:** Jake –

 **JT:** How are my kids? I’ve asked plenty of people but everyone’s refused to tell me. I just… Are they okay?

 **JA:** I personally don’t know where they are, but I could find out where they are. Who they’re with.

 **JT:** Okay.

 **JA:** They’re probably okay.

 **JT:** I’m sure.

 **JA:** You care about your kids a lot.

 **JT:** Of course I do. I’m a father. I love my kids. I want them to be safe.

 **JA:** What would you do if they weren’t safe?

[ _pause_ ]

 **JT:** Why don’t you stop beating around the bush, Jim, and just start asking me what you really want to ask.

 **JA:** Fine. Why did you kill your wife?

[ _pause_ ]

 **JT:** Something else.

 **JA:** Why something else? You asked me to stop beating around the bush, to just ask what I want to know. And I want to know why you killed your wife and cooked a meal out of her organs.

 **JT:** I can end this interview any time I’d like.

 **JA:** Go ahead.

[ _pause_ ]

 **JA:** Fine. You want to be eased in? What do you want to talk about?

 **JT:** The news.

 **JA:** Fine. We’ll talk about the news.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liz skims through the bulk of the interview, warming up leftovers while she waits through Tapper and Acosta talking about the news. Idle subjects. Who’s looking good in the polls. Who might have trouble in their reelection campaign.

It’s eerily humanizing.

She sits with pasta in her lap as she presses play on her laptop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 **JA:** How eased up do you feel now, Jake?

 **JT:** You’re clearly not eased enough. You’re still ready to ask me about my wife.

 **JA:** Yes I am. You don’t know me, but I’m said to be pretty tenacious.

 **JT:** Oh, I think I’m beginning to understand that. [ _pause_ ] I cooked Blake Farenthold for our anniversary one year.

 **JA:** [ _startled_ ] Oh?

 **JT:** Have you ever had a beggar’s chicken?

 **JA:** [ _slowly_ ] No, I can’t say I have.

 **JT:** It’s a Chinese dish. You stuff a chicken, wrap it in clay, and slowly bake it at a low heat for up to six hours. It’s quite a filling meal.

 **JA:** Why him?

 **JT:** I wanted a nice meal for my wife, on our anniversary.

 **JA:** Did you plan the kill around the meal, or the meal around the kill?

 **JT:** A bit of both. I told Jen I would treat her to a romantic homemade dinner, but I was a bit stuck on what to prepare, what to get. Inspiration struck when I heard he’d be showing up on Anderson that night – Does he still do his show? Anderson, I mean.

 **JA:** No, he doesn’t. [ _pause_ ] Did she know?

 **JT:** No. She didn’t. She never knew.

 **JA:** So you never told her?

[ _pause_ ]

 **JT:** I think that’s all the time I have for today.

[ _End of recording_ ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liz thought she’d have a few days to steel herself before returning to the fray, before having to face Tapper once more in that icy cell of his, to be observed by someone she is supposed to be observing, but fate has other plans.

Bumiller waits outside with her this time, both of them staring out across the road in wait for the FBI agents to arrive. Well, Bumiller is doing that, Liz is watching her instead. Her lips are pressed in a thin line.

“You’re not a fan of this,” Liz says. Unnecessarily, because it’s as plain as day on her face.

“No, I’m not,” Bumiller agrees. The exhaustion in her features gives away to more than a slight amount of anger. “It’s unethical, to say the least, for the FBI to be using a journalist like yourself to interview a serial killer who may or may not have insight into another serial killer who’s still running around the Northeast.”

“Tapper’s the one who agreed to talk about Crockett,” Liz says. “I was just supposed to deliver to him the questionnaire. But now he’s going to talk about him and the FBI might be able to catch the bastard killing those poor women.”

“But he only wants to speak to you.”

She shrugs. “I don’t officially start on Capitol Hill until next week. You said it was fine, when I went yesterday.”

“I’m not talking about those kinds of ethics, Landers,” Bumiller sighs. “I’m talking about the kind of ethics that ask whether or not it’s right for you, a journalist with no formal training in psychology, to be interviewing someone like Jake Tapper.”

The car finally arrives, pulling up to the curb right in front of them. Bumiller looks so fucking tired, and Liz knows she has a point. By all rights, she shouldn’t be here.

“Like you said, he’s only going to speak with me,” Liz says. She’s just about to reach for the door when Zebley steps out, looking apologetic.

“Sorry, ma’am, I just got the call on my way here,” he says, dusting off his suit a bit as he stands straight. “Tapper changed his mind. He asked to send you a message instead of meeting him today.”

“A message?” Liz blinks.

Zebley pulls out his phone. “Split City, Amanda Carpenter.”

“That’s it?” When he nods, Liz turns to Bumiller, doing her best to look dignified with just the slightest bit of pouty.

Bumiller sighs. “Go ahead. Solve your mystery.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You know those movies with those journalists who throw out all standards to solve a mystery?” Liz asks. She pauses to take a sip of her Starbucks drink. “That’s literally me right now.”

“Sounds like a heck of a lot of fun,” Mikayla hums. “I do have to get back to my actual job though, which isn’t being your personal cheerleader.”

Liz rolls her eyes. “Like you didn’t come here to learn more about whatever Tapper might’ve told me today.” She chuckles a little as Mikayla walks away, leaving her alone to research.

Amanda Carpenter wasn’t difficult to find, she was a former staffer for Ted Cruz, a former CNN analyst, and now consulted for the RNC. Alive and pretty and, according to her voicemail, on vacation with her family.

Split City is even harder to find. At first it sounded like some sort of reference to divorce, but Carpenter is still married. And then, on just a hunch, Liz types in “DC” right after it and results come in for a storage facility near the edge of town. She grabs her purse off her desk and calls an Uber.

Storm clouds rage on in the distance, and Liz takes this time to put on her headphones. _Mood music_ , she thinks, glibly, as she stares out the window. _Some soft white noise._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 **JA:** How did you pick your victims?

 **JT:** It was an arduous and thoughtful process. Ask me in specifics.

 **JA:** [ _pause_ ] Okay… How did you decide someone was, for the lack of a better word, worthy of being… eaten?

 **JT:** That’s definitely the wrong word.

 **JA:** You know what I meant.

 **JT:** Yes, yes, I do. [ _pause_ ] I wasn’t a mean guy. You could say that I was generally well-liked by staffers and young professionals. People felt comfortable coming to me with their problems, talking about whatever bothered them. Whoever bothered them.

 **JA:** Like a guidance counselor.

 **JT:** I knew who all the bullies were.

 **JA:** So how did you decide when it was time for a certain bully to face their crimes?

 **JT:** When you put it like that, it sounds like I was some sort of vigilante, fighting crime in Washington outside the law in a way that some might find... unsavory.

 **JA:** That’s how your defense attorneys described it. How would you?

 **JT:** I would say, I had some dangerous cravings, and I decided to satisfy them in a way that benefited society.

 **JA:** I see.

 **JT:** Deciding my, shall we say, victims was really just based on what was convenient to me. If I knew a staffer was working late or a congressman would be in town, alone, then...

 **JA:** What would you say drove you – a need to kill, or a need to eat?

 **JT:** I’m not certain you’re qualified to ask that type of question.

 **JA:** Come on, you were a journalist once, you know what it’s like.

 **JT:** Unfortunately I do.

 **JA:** Why did you pick journalism, anyway? An interesting profession for someone with your… tastes.

 **JT:** You know, I really actually did want to be a cartoonist at first. Then I just fell into this. [ _pause_ ] I guess you could say I wanted some proximity to power.

[ _pause_ ]

 **JA:** Can I ask you a terrible question?

 **JT:** As though you haven’t already.

 **JA:** [ _sarcastically_ ] Ha ha.

 **JT** : I’m kidding. Go ahead.

 **JA:** Okay…Who did you enjoy eating the most?

 **JT** : Well… That’s quite a tasteless question, isn’t it?

[ _Both laugh_ ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m sorry, miss, but we don’t have anyone here under the name of Carpenter,” Mr. Yow, the proprietor of Split City, tells her.

Liz only feels a little guilty for flashing her FBI badge at him but she figured it wasn’t that unethical, considering she was with the FBI. And she could use it for something like this.

“Can I see a list of your clientele?” she asks, politely as she can. Being a pretty blonde has some advantages, doesn’t it?

Yow hesitates for a moment, but before long, she’s leaning against the counter and flipping through a thick binder of all the people who are currently renting a storage unit.

She doesn’t have to look for long. She points to the name at the top of the page and gestures to Yow. “Arthur Allen. Where’s his unit?”

It’s a short drive to Unit 31 in Yow’s car, the two of them huddled under the umbrella while they walk toward the metal door. “Pre-paid in full for ten years,” he tells her. “We’re one of the few facilities that don’t require ID when renting a unit.”

“How nice,” Liz hums. She bends down and examines the padlock for a moment, before holding out her hand for the ring of keys. The lock opens easily, but the door itself doesn’t roll up past her waist. She turns to Yow and Yow gives her a look that more or less translates to, _Fuck no._

Liz tightens her ponytail. “Well, Mr. Yow,” she says, “if this door should, you know, fall down or something, would you be kind enough to call this number for me?” She pulls out a card from her purse and scribbles Bumiller’s number on it. “It’s my supervisor. She knows I’m here and that you’re with me.”

“I’ll be right here, Miss Landers,” Yow assures her in a way that isn’t particularly assuring.

She tries not to mind it as she ducks down into the unit, grateful she’s wearing pants today. That is, until she feels her pants get caught in one of the metal edges, followed by a sharp pain in her leg. “Fuck,” she whispers.

“Are you okay?” Yow asks from outside.

“I’m fine,” Liz replies. She dusts off her jacket. “Is there a light switch in these units, Mr. Yow?”

“Should be one on the right wall.”

She pulls her phone out to light her way to the switch, but a few flicks up and down prove it pointless. At least she isn’t afraid of the dark.

It looks like any old storage unit, filled with boxes of dusty books and a ridiculous piano oddly placed in the middle. She plays a few disjointed notes and hears scurrying in the distance. She shines a light where she thinks she heard the noises and finds what looks like a – car?

Liz really hopes the cringing feeling in her gut is just nerves and not some sort of sixth-sense, as she grits her teeth and pulls off the tarp.

Her phone, blessedly, remains clutched in her hands while the other covers her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She’s almost certain she can hear her heart thundering against her ribcage.

It’s a fucking vacuum-sealed body, completely naked, possibly female but she can’t quite tell because. Well.

It doesn’t have a head.

“Holy fucking shit,” Liz whispers. Somewhere in the DC offices, she’s pretty sure Bumiller’s sixth sense for trouble just went off.

Agent Zebley arrives on the scene soon after she calls him, almost like he was just waiting for her signal. He half-jogs over to her and hangs his umbrella above them.

“You’re the lead agent on this?” she asks.

“One of them,” Zebley says. “At least, the one assigned to your involvement in the case.”

“I see.” She chuckles a bit, watching agents try to pry open the heavy metal door, rain splattering around them. “I guess you’re probably more relieved than I am to finally catch a lead here, huh? No more driving me to and from Tapper’s prison cell.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t really mind that, ma’am.”

“You don’t have to keep calling me ma’am,” Liz tells him.

At that, Zebley actually smiles. “I don’t mind that either, ma’am.”

There’s a splashing sound beside them and to her surprise, Liz sees Schmidt and Mazzetti walking over. Schmidt’s finally wearing a jacket that isn’t incredibly conspicuous but he’s also leaving Mazzetti half-soaked with the way he’s covering himself.

“Landers,” he hums. “We’ll take it from here.”

Liz raises a brow. “Take it from here? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Bumiller said you had someplace to be,” Mazzetti says. “Something about meeting with a source?”

Oh, fuck, right. The whole entire reason she’s even standing here. She looks up at Zebley with a bemused expression. “I don’t suppose you could drive me there, could you?”

“I gotta stay here and monitor the situation,” Zebley says. “But I could wait with you until the cab comes.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barney lets her right through, taking her down the hallways and toward Tapper’s cell. “I won’t be able to give you much time, so you’ll have to be quick.”

“I’ll try my best,” Liz promises. She can’t promise more than that, not when there’s so much on the table to be discussed.

Tapper’s lying back on his bed when she enters, a book in his hands, but he immediately sets it aside and sits up. “Miss Landers.”

“Arthur Leigh Allen,” Liz says. Barney forgot to put out a chair so she just sits down on the floor, letting the water drip off her hair and clothes. “One of the prime suspects in the Zodiac case. Back during the 2016 elections, it became a meme that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer. And Amanda Carpenter worked for Ted Cruz.” She wipes the water off her forehead. “That storage unit was yours, wasn’t it?”

Tapper doesn’t say anything at first, just stands up and moves to his desk. He pulls out a towel from one of his drawers and pushes it through the food tray dispenser. Liz hesitates for a fifth of a second before reaching over and pulling it out.

“Thank you,” she sighs, relieved to get some of the water out of her hair.

“Consider that a freebie,” Tapper hums. He sits down on the floor too, right across from her. He’s still a bit taller than her but their eyelines are more equal now than they’d been before. “Last time we spoke, I mentioned a quid pro quo. Alternating questions. You only get answers if you answer.”

“Not exactly typical in journalism,” Liz replies, carefully.

He shrugs. “I’m not a journalist anymore.”

Barney’s warning replays and she lets out a sigh. “Did you kill that woman?”

“No,” Tapper replies. “I won’t regale you with the details, but I found her. Sans head.” He licks his lips as he thinks. “Where are you from?”

“Florida. Tallahassee.” She licks her lips too. “Do you know who killed her?”

“Unfortunately, I do not,” he sighs. “I did try to find out but, well, I never had the time.” He opens his mouth, but then his eyes dart over to her leg. “Oh, the bleeding’s stopped.”

Liz looks down. “So it has.”

“How did you feel when you found her, Elizabeth?” Tapper pauses. “May I call you Elizabeth?”

She doesn’t respond, still trying to think of how to answer his first question. “Scared, at first,” she admits. “And then… a little excited.”

“Excited?” he raises a brow. “Why?”

“Because…” she breathes out slowly. “I’d found a lead.”

Tapper chuckles. He smiles very easily, for a sociopath. Or maybe the only things he doesn’t feel is empathy and remorse. “You know, I used to host a show called The Lead.”

“I know,” Liz nods. She sets the towel down in her lap. “Who killed that woman, Jake?”

Maybe he notices it’s the first time she uses his name, maybe he doesn’t. He leans back a little, posture still straight. “Someone the FBI would love to get their hands on.”

Liz’s eyes widen. “You’re – you’re saying this is Davy Crockett’s first victim?”

Tapper’s smile returns, a bit cooler than before. It’s fascinating, almost eerie, to see that kind of change up close. A shiver runs down her spine and she tries to suppress it while he speaks. “Are you frightened of me, Elizabeth?”

There’s a right answer and there’s a truthful answer, and she goes with the latter. “Yes,” she says. She bites her lip. “Yes, I am.”

“Why?”

She could probably press him for a question herself, but she doesn’t. She just answers. “Because you’re charming.”

“Charming?” Tapper actually laughs at that, head tilting back a little. “Why thank you.”

Liz can’t look at him, she can’t, not when he’s looking like that, so she looks everywhere else instead. She didn’t notice it before, but there’s paper along the walls. Drawings. Cartoons.

_I really actually did want to be a cartoonist._

“You draw.”

Tapper nods. “Yes, I do. It’s quite a stress-reliever.” He looks around and his gaze stops at the desk, so she looks there too. There’s a drawing on the wall there, different from the rest. More realistic than the cartoons. There’s something vaguely familiar about it and then it hits her – she’d been looking up pictures of him just last night.

“That’s –” her voice freezes and she tries again. “That is Jim Acosta, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Tapper’s voice has taken on a different, almost softer quality. Almost like… “Yes, it is.”

There’s silence for a moment, and then Liz remembers to ask, once more, “Did Davy Crockett kill her, Jake?”

He slowly turns away from the drawing and back to her, face void of emotion. “I think that’s all the time we have for today.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a couple of messages waiting for her when she wakes up the next morning, some from Mikayla, some from Schmidt and Mazzetti. She reads the one from Bumiller first.

_You’ll probably have one hell of a story when you get back._

Liz snorts a little as she types her reply. _If the Feds let me tell it._

Zebley’s texts come next, first saying he hopes she got home okay and then telling her he’ll pick her up when she’s ready and take her to see the body she found. _Who knows_ , he writes. _Maybe you’ll see something we don’t_.

She’s never been in the FBI building before – there aren’t many reasons to be here for ordinary citizens not on this specific beat – so she does get an extra kick out of seeing people’s surprised faces when Zebley takes her down secluded corridors with just a flash of his badge and a curt “She’s with me.”

He opens a door for her and they step into where Liz suspects people examine bodies, based on the ones she sees lying on gurneys – are they gurneys? – with people holding scalpels above them. Even in her modest navy blazer and sneakers, she feels incredibly out of place.

One of the – scientists? doctors? – looks up and smiles at her. “Hey,” she hums. “You’re the one who found this poor girl, right? Liz Landers?”

“That’s me,” Liz nods.

“Amanda. Golden,” she replies. “I’d shake your hand but, uh.” She holds up her gloved hands and smiles back when Liz chuckles a bit.

“Yeah, hey, I’m also here,” the other scientist waves his hands at her, looking more relaxed than his tone would’ve suggested. “Call me Tom. We’ve got a third guy usually here with us, but he’s off sick.”

“Poor Zeller,” Golden hums. “He’s missing out on some real interesting stuff here.” She considers her words and gives Liz an apologetic grimace. “Respectfully, I mean.”

“It’s fine, I get it,” Liz says. She sticks one hand in her pocket and holds her purse strap in the other, trying to be as small and unobtrusive as possible. And then her eyes fall on to the other uncovered body, pushed temporarily to the side. Which is the one she recognizes, the one from last night.

She looks back at the body Golden and Tom are examining. Curiosity wins out over politeness and she clears her throat. “Um – whose body is this?”

“Still trying to figure that out,” Tom says. “Found this morning off the Potomac. Stones on her body so it took a while for her to wash up.”

 _Virginia Woolf_ , Liz thinks, but thankfully stops herself from saying. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “So, um, do we know if this really is one of Crockett’s victims?”

“More signs point to yes than no,” Golden says. “She’s got the same profile as the other victims – same age, built, all that jazz. The other victims were killed by blunt force trauma or – like our latest victim over there – suffocation. But what’s interesting about this one is…”

She nods over to Tom who takes the lead. With a gloved hand, he gestures around the body. “All of the victims have these patterned incisions. I’ll spare you the details, but in all the other victims, these injuries were post-mortem.”

“And for her, they weren’t?” Liz asks.

“No, they were her cause of death.”

She looks down at the body, imagining this once-gorgeous woman, impaled on spikes by some mystery deviant, never to breathe again. She tries not to think it but it comes anyway. _That could’ve been me._

She didn’t hear Zebley sneak out but she hears him swear, loudly, right outside the door. “Shit!” He’s shaking his head, face set.

Golden is the one to break the silence. “Well? What happened?”

“Senator Schumer’s daughter was just kidnapped.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 **JA:** I really need to ask about your wife, Jake.

 **JT:** You don’t need to.

 **JA:** There’s a lot of discussion on it, about what your relationship was, about whether you really loved each other, about if she knew –

 **JT:** I love her.

 **JA:** Love?

 **JT:** Yes. As in present tense. As in I still love her, even though she’s long gone. [ _pause_ ] Though, she’s also a part of me, forever. And not just in the metaphysical sense.

 **JA:** What happened the night she died?

 **JT:** She was sick.

 **JA:** Sick?

 **JT:** Terminal. One of those brain diseases that was going to eat away at her mind and turn her into a stranger, to me, to our children, to herself. It… it was something she feared, to be unrecognizable to herself.

 **JA:** So, what did you do?

 **JT:** I planned a date night. I sent the kids away to their grandparents’, Jen wore her wedding dress and I managed to fit into my tux, and we talked the night away. She didn’t notice that I hadn’t touched my wine. She curled up right next to me and went to sleep.

 **JA:** An eternal slumber.

 **JT:** Yeah.

 **JA:** Did she know that you were going to… do this to her?

 **JT:** I didn’t flat-out ask her if she wanted me to euthanize her. But… words were exchanged. Personal words. All of her friends could tell you that one of her greatest fears was mental degradation. I just… I wanted to spare her from that fate.

[ _pause_ ]

 **JA:** What did you do next?

 **JT:** I took her body to the guesthouse and I carefully cut her heart out, and then I stitched her back up and disposed of her body. [ _pause_ ] Not well enough, apparently.

 **JA:** Your fingerprints were all over her, metaphorically and literally.

 **JT:** What can I say, I was grieving, I made some mistakes.

 **JA:** What did you do then?

 **JT:** Then I went back home and I ate her heart. Not raw, of course. In fact, I could tell you the exact recipe I used and what wine I drank with it.

 **JA:** And when you finished, what did you do?

 **JT:** I called a friend, sounding frantic, and told him that Jen went out for a walk hours ago and still hadn’t come home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a chair waiting for her but Liz can’t sit, she’s got too much energy running through her veins to even think of sitting. She drops her purse down and crosses her arms. “Senator Schumer’s daughter was by Davy Crockett.”

“Not the famed Texan, I’m assuming,” Tapper hums.

Liz presses her lips together. If there were ever a time to keep her cool it’s, well, now. She breathes out through her nose. “Your former network’s already started a countdown ticker.”

At that, Tapper chuckles. “Oh yeah, they love their countdowns. Glad to see some things never change.”

“On that note,” she takes a breath, “I need you to tell me who he is.”

He sits down on his chair and crosses his legs, hands folded neatly in his lap. “Okay,” he says. “I need to be assured that I will get something out of this arrangement.”

Another fucking quid pro quo. She shouldn’t have expected anything less. “Fine, fine. I’ll tell you my life story.”

“What I want is to be transferred to another facility,” Tapper says, plainly. “I have one in mind, near Philadelphia. I want a room with a view and I want my parents to be able to visit me.” He pauses, briefly. “And my kids.”

Liz swallows hard. “I – I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.”

He shrugs. “Then I guess I can’t tell you who the killer is.”

Confusion is replaced with rage and suddenly Liz is angry. She’s so fucking angry. “Are you kidding me?” she huffs. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re really not going to help save some poor innocent girl because you think you’re entitled to – what, compensation? Even though you’re a fucking –”

“Why do men kill women?” The question comes out of the blue, apropos absolutely nothing, and Liz isn’t sure she quite heard it correctly. So Tapper repeats it. “Why do men kill women?”

“I – I don’t know,” Liz sighs. “I don’t know. Any number of reasons.” He looks at her expectantly and she half-wishes she could just slap him through the glass. She shakes her head. “Uh, jealousy. Rejection. She doesn’t want to sleep with him, she doesn’t want to date him, something like that.”

“I guess you could say men have a difficult time accepting no as an answer, huh?” he hums.

Her eyes narrow and she folds her arms closer to herself. “What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing about myself, Elizabeth. I’m just trying to…” he gestures his hand vaguely, “push you in the right direction.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Tapper leans back in his chair, crossing his arms as well. “Do you know, on average, how many homicides against women are intimate partner violence-related?”

Liz shrugs. “Not off the top of my head but I’m guessing it’s a lot?”

“The CDC did a study in 2014,” Tapper tells her. “Fifty-five percent. Do you know in how many of those cases was the culprit a former or current romantic partner?”

“If I didn’t know the answer before, what makes you think I know now?” she retorts.

His lips quirk but he doesn’t laugh. “Ninety-three percent.”

“Okay,” Liz says slowly. “Okay.” The cogs in her brain turn, but it’s like she’s missing a piece. Or, she just can’t see the puzzle for the pieces. “Are you saying that all these women knew their assailant? The FBI probably checked everyone they knew. They would’ve found a connection.”

“Are you sure they checked everyone?”

Barney opens the door. “Miss Landers, I’m sorry, but Senator Schumer is on his way and you need to go.”

Liz turns to Tapper but he just shakes his head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She calls Zebley while she’s entering the office the next morning, coffee in her other hand as she makes her way to her desk. “Hey, so Amanda texted me last night, about the identity of the latest victim – Stephanie – but she said you’d know today who the girl in the car was?”

“I have someone looking into it,” Zebley says. “But, Liz –”

“And thanks for sending me those files, by the way,” Liz adds. She sets her purse on the floor and her coffee on her desk. “I know there’s something there. He wouldn’t have said that if there wasn’t _something_ –”

“Liz –”

“Maybe she’s the missing piece, maybe there’s something she has that connects her with everyone else –”

“Schumer made a deal with Tapper,” he blurts out. “They’re moving him to Philadelphia tonight.”

Everything stops. Liz can’t feel her heart beating in her chest. Her purse falls over to the floor all on its own. “Oh.” She blinks. “Did – did he give a name?”

“He’s about to, once all the preparations are made for his transfer. We’ve got a team ready to go out the moment he says so.” He pauses. “I’m sorry, Liz.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Mikayla gesturing for her attention, pointing to the conference room. Bumiller’s standing there, and through the glass doors, Liz can see Wolf Blitzer sitting inside.

“Can I call you back, Agent Zebley?” she asks.

“Absolutely.”

She hangs up and goes to the conference room. Blitzer doesn’t look as frightening as he did the first time Liz met him – though, maybe that’s because she met someone who frightens her more.

“Miss Landers,” he hums, in that deep drawl of his. “I’m guessing you know that Jake took the deal Schumer offered him. Or, well, the other way around.”

“I’m guessing you advised against it,” Liz replies. She folds her arms behind her back, posture straight, and has a vague recollection of Tapper in this exact same position.

Blitzer shrugs. “Alas, just like Jim Acosta, my advice went unheeded.”

“The ghost in the machine,” Liz says. She didn’t mean to say it aloud but, now that it’s out there, something occurs to her. “Why did Acosta interview him?”

“It was a long time ago,” he sighs. “At the time, it felt like the right decision. The anniversary of the whole… situation. So many questions left unanswered. And because he started at CNN, we felt like it was our job to find the answers.”

“You didn’t have to,” she points out. “You could’ve just let Jake die in relative obscurity. Some mysteries can’t be solved.”

Blitzer raises a brow. “You called him Jake.”

For a second, Liz feels herself freeze up. She breathes out through her nose. “You did too.”

There’s a long pause, they’re not quite staring each other down, but they can’t quite seem to look away. Not until he asks, “Did you listen to all the recordings?”

She almost certainly shouldn’t be shocked that he knows she has the recordings. Fuck, Schmidt’s source might’ve been him in the first place. But she tells the truth. “Not since the first one.”

“You should,” Blitzer says. “Especially the last two. They’ll tell you everything you need to know.” Before she can even ask what that even is, he’s walking past her and out the door. There’s an eerie feeling in the back of her neck that makes her think this is the last time she’s gonna be seeing him.

She goes back to her desk without catching anyone’s eye, reaching down into her purse to pull out the flash drive and her headphones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ _Recording begins_ ]

 **Jake Tapper:** You look different today.

 **Jim Acosta:** Is that so?

 **JT:** I’m guessing you have something you want to ask me.

 **JA:** Yes, there is.

 **JT:** Well, we’ve gotten this far. Go ahead.

 **JA:** Since our last session, I’ve been doing some due diligence. Some researching.

 **JT:** Have you now?

 **JA:** Yes, I have. I wanted to be as accurate as possible when describing the circumstances surrounding your wife’s death. After all, it is a very contentious subject.

 **JT:** Is it.

 **JA:** Very much so. But do you know what I found when I contacted every reputable neurologist in the District of Columbia?

 **JT:** You really called all of them?

 **JA:** Oh, believe me, I did. And I called all the ones in Philadelphia too. And I even called in a few favors to help me double check. And you know what I found?

 **JT:** What?

 **JA:** Not a single record of a Jennifer Tapper having any sort of neurological problem. In fact, according to her physician, she was in perfect health. [ _pause_ ] And you know what else I did?

 **JT:** What?

 **JA:** I called her parents. They told me that her biggest fear was her children dying before her. That everyone knew that.

[ _pause_ ]

 **JT:** I see.

[ _pause_ ]

 **JA:** Why did you kill your wife, Jake?

 **JT:** Stop the recording, Jim.

 **JA:** Jake.

 **JT:** Please.

[ _Recording ends_ ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the second time, Zebley manages to squeeze her through places she isn’t supposed to go with a flash of his badge. “Isn’t that kind of against the rules?” she asks.

He shrugs. “A lot of this is. Could she have five minutes?” This question he directs at the agents standing by Tapper, who, after some grumbling, agree to give her just that. Five minutes alone with a murderer.

Even through the restraints and the mask, he manages to speak just fine. “Well, well, Elizabeth. If people didn’t know any better, they’d think you have a crush on me. Which, to be fair, they don’t know any better.”

“No, they don’t,” Liz agrees. She pauses. “The name you gave to Senator Schumer. Edgar Alefantis.”

Tapper raises a brow. “What about him?”

“Edgar Maddison Welch was the man who fired three shots at Comet Ping Pong, owned by James Alefantis, after a viral conspiracy theory claimed that high-ranking officials of the Democratic Party were running a child sex ring there.”

She can’t see his face but through his tone, she can tell he’s smiling. “What do you want to ask me, Elizabeth?”

There’s only one thing, really, that she wants to ask. She clears her throat. “Why… why did you kill Jim Acosta?”

There’s a long pause. Tapper sighs. He takes a while to speak. “Did you know,” he starts, then starts again. “Did you know that, during the holiday party we met at, there was mistletoe hanging from a doorway we were standing in? And he kissed me on the cheek.”

That’s a response to a question Liz didn’t ask, but it answers something. Tapper meets her eyes and smiles. “Did you know Davy Crockett was an exceptional hunter? Much of his feats were overexaggerated in all his folklore, but this was something true. He knew how to hunt.”

Liz nods. “Yeah, but this time, I’m gonna catch him.”

(Later on, when things are said and done, she’ll wonder if she could’ve stopped him from escaping. She probably could’ve, really, if she’d just told someone Tapper was lying. But she didn’t.

She’ll try not to think about that part.

In the end, she was kind of right. Tapper’s charm was the most terrifying thing about him.)

She finds Zebley right outside, right where he said he’d be, standing by his car and scrolling through her phone.

“How did it go?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I got what I needed.” She shoves her hands into her pockets. “Do you have the very first victim’s name back yet?”

“Yeah,” Zebley says, slowly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Do you want to go on one more drive with me?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Facebook, James Gumb was the boyfriend of the third victim and, also, the ex-boyfriend of the very first victim, the woman found in the car. Some agents already came by to interview him about his girlfriend’s death. They already had his address.

Zebley flashes his badge as soon as Gumb opens the door. “Sorry to bother you again, and so late at night, sir,” he says, “but my partner and I have a few more questions. If you’d be willing to answer them.”

Gumb hesitates a moment, then opens the door fully. “Sure, officer.” He nods at them as they step inside. “I, uh, just have something on the oven. Let me just turn it off and I’ll be with you two in a moment.”

Liz listens absently, mostly looking around, trying to see if there’s some hidden clue that might suddenly jump out at her and just solve the case for her. Just one little piece to finish the puzzle.

She finds in the living room between two windows – a large pair of antlers hanging from the wall. Her breath catches in her throat and suddenly she can see the body, poor Stephanie’s body, pushed into those horns until they come out the other side.

“Aaron,” she manages to say. Zebley turns around and she’s pretty sure he’s going through the same thing she just did, staring at those antlers. He takes a step forward, suddenly brandishing a handkerchief, and by some random miracle, he wipes away a piece of skin.

They look at each other. Liz shakes her head. “Just… shit.”

She hears something cock behind her, sees Zebley’s eyes widen as he drops the ‘chief and lunges for her. Her back slaps against the carpet just as a shot rings out and she squeezes her eyes on instinct. There’s a hand on her chest, keeping her down, and she keeps her eyes shut through all the gunfire fire until the hand is off.

“Liz,” he breathes out. “Liz, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I… Yeah. Yeah.” She wonders if he can feel her heart, how fast it’s beating, bruising against her ribcage. She breathes out slowly and opens her eyes. “Did you…”

“I did,” Zebley says. He looks down at her and grimaces. “I think we got him.”

They stay like there for a few moments, the two of them, until a something echoes in the distance. Something that sounds like a scream.

Liz blinks. “Do you… do you think that’s Allison Schumer?”

Zebley climbs off top of her and holds out his hand. “Let’s go find her.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s only spent one week in Congress but it already feels like an eternity. It doesn’t help that she has to go into the office on a fucking weekend to finish an article before she can, you know, finally enjoy herself.

Aaron texts her while she’s coming out of the elevator, _Let me know when you’re done, I can pick you up just like old times._

Liz sends back a laughing emoji, shaking her head as she pockets her phone. At least he didn’t get any shit for Tapper’s escape. Not when he rescued a senator’s daughter and caught a serial killer.

Mikayla isn’t in, so there isn’t anyone to warn her that there’s something waiting for her at her desk. A modest bouquet of flowers, likely bought from some expensive delivery service. They’re quite pretty.

She sits down and searches for a card, but all she finds is a small envelop with a flash drive inside. It feels strangely like déjà vu. Especially when she plugs it in and finds a single audio file. Especially when she hears the voices on the clip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ _He thought I forgot the kiss but I actually remembered. I guess no one was actually free from Jake’s charm, huh?_ ”

“ _I wasn’t free from yours, you weren’t free from mine._ ”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clip finishes. Liz opens the lid of her coffee cup and dunks the flash drive inside. She tosses it in the breakroom trashcan and goes back to her desk.

No one has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> hyea.


End file.
